Wheeled carts are useful in several different settings, including airports, grocery stores and retail shopping malls. The proprietors of such establishments often provide a plurality of carts for the convenience of their patrons. For example, carts are provided in airport terminals so that departing and arriving passengers may more easily transport their luggage, carry-on items and, in some cases, small children. The remainder of this application will primarily discuss an airport terminal application of the present invention, though clearly the invention may be used in connection with any facility where a plurality of carts are periodically needed by patrons.
Continuing the airport example, one long-standing problem with providing carts for passengers is that the carts are not properly returned to the place from which they were taken so that a maldistribution of carts results. That is, carts are typically used to haul luggage, etc. to the passengers' cars and then abandoned, resulting in an abundance of carts in the parking area and a deficiency of carts in the terminal where they are most needed. Generally, this is due to the passengers' negligence and the carts are not stolen or otherwise harmed, though cart damage and theft sometimes occur. At least two approaches to solving the problem discussed above have been utilized. The obvious approach, using employees to gather loose carts, tends to be menial work, is expensive and takes the employees away from more important tasks.
A better approach to the cart maldistribution problem discussed above has been proposed in the prior art. This approach generally works in the following way: An individual deposits a monetary sum, e.g., one dollar, into a cart dispenser and in return receives a single cart. Once the individual has used the cart, the cart may be returned to a cart dispenser, either the original cart dispenser or a similar dispenser, and a reward, e.g. twenty-five cents, is discharged by the machine in exchange therefore.
The prior art includes two patents directed to such cart dispensers: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,194,377, issued to J. T. Fishbach et al, and 3,978,959, issued to J. M. Muellner, the latter assigned to the assignee of the present application. Typically, dispensers of this type are placed in the airport terminal and in or near parking areas or taxi stands, and users of the carts indeed tend to return the carts to dispensers in exchange for rewards. The problem of cart maldistribution persists, however, since most of the carts are taken from dispensers within the terminal and returned, if at all, to dispensers located in areas outside of the terminal. Excess carts in parking areas is potentially even more problematical in grocery store and shopping mall parking lots since the patrons have little need for hauling items into the establishment, and carts are rarely moved from the parking area to the interior of the establishment by the patrons.
The invention of the present application is directed to this problem. Particularly, the invention is a cart dispenser and storage device that includes a means for conveying carts from a receiving end, where a reward is preferably discharged or escrow returned upon return of a cart, to a rental end where the carts may be taken following the insertion of a sum of money or a token into a means for accepting same. The conveying means are motorized and preferably operate automatically to propel the carts to the rental end, eliminating the time and money consuming task of gathering carts in regions distant from the rental area. The carts are securely stored within the rental end of the device until dispensed to a paying patron.
It should be noted that the Fishbach patent also teaches a cart conveyor and storage device. The Fishbach device, though generally useful, includes at least two shortcomings, however. The Fishbach device is not suited for solving the aforementioned maldistribution problem. Fishbach, like Muellner, teaches a fairly short dispenser that is not designed to present a receiving end proximate to the area where the carts are unloaded. That is, Fishbach and Muellner are dispensers of the type that do dispense rewards for return of carts but do not significantly lessen the maldistribution problem by propelling the carts from unloading points to the rental area.
Fishbach also suffers from another disadvantage as compared to the present invention. In Fishbach, the conveyor includes hook-like members that engage the axles of carts. The hook-like members are attached to a chain, for example, which moves continuously. The members are counterweighted to disengage from the cart when the cart nests with similar carts near the rental end of the device. The Fishbach hook-like members present at least three problems. First, the hooks engage the carts themselves, resulting potentially in surface damage to the cart at the locus of the contact between hook and cart. Secondly, if the hook-like members fail to disengage from the carts or resist disengagement considerably, the carts can suffer more than mere surface damage, perhaps bending the carts' axles in extreme cases. Thirdly, if the Fishbach members are not counterweighted properly or otherwise are too "compliant" the carts may not be propelled at all.